New South Africa Rioting

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — Seven blacks were slain Saturday as mobs of rioting blacks sought revenge for the killings of 19 blacks by police on Thursday.

Three of the victims, suspected by the rioters of being ``collaborators`` with white authorities, were hacked to death and their bodies were burned. The bodies of two more victims were found burned and police speculated they also had been killed by rioters.

Two other blacks were shot by police. The deaths raised to 26 the number killed in racial turmoil in the last three days and to 250 the number killed since August.

The five burning deaths were at Kwanobuhle and the two shooting deaths were at Kwazakhele. Both are black townships near Uitenhage, the scene of Thursday`s killings.

Police Col. Gerrie van Rooyen said rioters set fire overnight to the homes of nine black police officers in the Uitenhage area; nine other homes were burned after Thursday`s shootings.

In Kwanobuhle, blacks attacked a funeral home owned by T.B. Kinikini, the only black township councilor who refused to resign this month under pressure from residents who consider the council a puppet of the white-minority government. Many in the township believe Kinikini has been working closely with police.

Van Rooyen said Kinikini`s son, Selumko, 18, was guarding the mortuary with two friends when gasoline bombs hurled through a window forced them out. ``They were attacked with spades, axes, stones and sticks, petrol

(gasoline) was strewn on them and they were set alight. All three were killed,`` van Rooyen said said.

Two other bodies were found nearby, burned beyond recognition. Van Rooyen said one might be the elder Kinikini.

Van Rooyen said the two blacks shot in Kwazakhele were in a crowd that surrounded and attacked police who were following an arson suspect.

Sheena Duncan, president of Black Sash, a group opposed to apartheid, described the situation in Kwanobuhle as ``total anarchy and civil war.`` She said that in the absence of ways for blacks to redress their grievances, ``all that is left is undisciplined and tragic violence.``

Officials were concerned that more violence could flare on Sunday when the funerals of six previous riot victims are held in Kwanobuhle.

The 19 people killed Thursday were marching to a vigil for the 6. Seventeen died at the scene and two others later succumbed to wounds.

Black local officials said police have come under repeated attacks by other blacks during the last year. The feeling among many blacks is that these officials have been forced on black communities by the white establishment and that they function as spies and collaborators.

The system of black local officials was established in 1983. Blacks boycotted the first elections that year, and fewer than 15 percent of blacks voted for the current black officials.

In Soweto, a teeming black township near Johannesburg, a grenade exploded at the home of Mayor Edward Kunene before dawn Saturday. There was only minor damage. The home of another black mayor in a township near Welkom was stoned. Sporadic violence also continued Friday and Saturday in several other black townships. Youths stoned and overturned cars, set fire to police vehicles and firebombed the homes of local officials.

International criticism of Thursday`s shootings mounted and the move to impose economic sanctions on South Africa appeared to gain momentum.

In London, the Foreign Office summoned South African Ambassador Denis Worrall to hear Minister of State Richard Luce voice his government`s anger over the ``insensible police action.``

Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe said the killings illustrated ``the evil of apartheid,`` South Africa`s policy of racial segregation, which he said was ``a matter of the gravest concern to the nation.``

David Owen, head of the Social Democrat Party, said Britain should play a leading role in the United Nations in pushing for compulsory economic sanctions against South Africa. Owens said he has always regarded economic sanctions as a last resort, but ``the time has now come for the West to get tough with South Africa.``

Worrall acknowledged the killings as ``completely unjustified,`` but insisted that South Africa is committed to fundamental reform. Efforts toward change, he said, have moved the nation into a period of ``fluidity and uncertainty.``

He said the current situation in South Africa is similar to that of the Southern United States during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s when black protesters were frequently assaulted and sometimes killed by people who opposed social reform.